About 8K for the kettles and pumps and automaton. Another 5K for the fridge. 3K for the serving tanks and kegs. 1k for all thee tapping filling and gas equipment. Another 3-5K in misc stuff like growlers, hose, fittings, pumps, grain storage, etc. Too much...

Little temperature controlled fermentation chamber is nearly completed so I thought I'd share some pics. This took me several weekends and I still have to insulate the ceiling and paint the floor with some heavy duty concrete and decking paint. That and I'm on the hunt for electronic thermocouples to monitor conical temps externally.

Now that I've been using the fermentation room for about a year and run some batches through it I thought I would give an update.

The Coolbot will get the room down to 34 degrees but it seems that it won't kick back on until the temperature has risen roughly 10 degrees in the room. Basically splitting the difference about the lowest it will hold temps at is 40. I haven't seen a conical drop below that during crashing so I am guessing that's the limitation. Overall though this has given me a lot more control of my fermentation temps and my beer has gotten a lot more consistent batch to batch which is what we're all striving to achieve. Not as effective as a jacketed conical but a lot less expensive.

Do you find that your Ferm room loses a lot of cold air because its not insulated? I was looking at building something like this soon, but the walls where gonna be a LOT thicker then just a piece of wood. Any thoughts and things you would od differently would be great!

Cheers,Jeff

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Granite Coast Brewing Company.Building a clone of The Electric Brewery to use as a pilot system for new recipes!

Do you find that your Ferm room loses a lot of cold air because its not insulated? I was looking at building something like this soon, but the walls where gonna be a LOT thicker then just a piece of wood. Any thoughts and things you would od differently would be great!

Cheers,Jeff

Hi Jeff. It loses some. It is insulated but only with 1" foam board. I have very limited space, just half a garage and anything thicker would have been too wide to fit my shelving. Better insulation would mean longer cold periods but since the cool bot works the way it does it still wouldn't cycle till that 10 degree difference. There's about 7 mins right now where just the fan is running before the compressor kicks back in.

It generates a lot of heat in the garage so if you can vent your unit that will be a bonus. I couldn't so I had to leave a gap and I sometimes need to open the garage door to cool things down on the hotter days. Between this thing and the commercial fridge I can build up heat pretty quick.

More on this. I've only used it to crash fermented beer until now but temps are rising here and I have an ESB yeast in one of the tanks today that needs to stay under 70. It's low end range is 64. I found that if I didn't disconnect the Coolbot even though it's set at 65 I was seeing temps down to 45. For most ale yeasts you're going to want to disconnect the heater on the Coolbot from the AC thermostat. The AC on its own is quite happy maintaining 67 degrees in the room but only after I disconnected the heater wire.

More on this. I've only used it to crash fermented beer until now but temps are rising here and I have an ESB yeast in one of the tanks today that needs to stay under 70. It's low end range is 64. I found that if I didn't disconnect the Coolbot even though it's set at 65 I was seeing temps down to 45. For most ale yeasts you're going to want to disconnect the heater on the Coolbot from the AC thermostat. The AC on its own is quite happy maintaining 67 degrees in the room but only after I disconnected the heater wire.

Have you contacted coolbot? It sounds like the coolbot is not behaving the way it should be. COuld be an issue with the electronics, or it could be the way you have configured your chamber.

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Granite Coast Brewing Company.Building a clone of The Electric Brewery to use as a pilot system for new recipes!

More on this. I've only used it to crash fermented beer until now but temps are rising here and I have an ESB yeast in one of the tanks today that needs to stay under 70. It's low end range is 64. I found that if I didn't disconnect the Coolbot even though it's set at 65 I was seeing temps down to 45. For most ale yeasts you're going to want to disconnect the heater on the Coolbot from the AC thermostat. The AC on its own is quite happy maintaining 67 degrees in the room but only after I disconnected the heater wire.

Have you contacted coolbot? It sounds like the coolbot is not behaving the way it should be. COuld be an issue with the electronics, or it could be the way you have configured your chamber.

No I haven't but I think realistically a room this small 3 x 5' which is not exactly a typical use for this product this is to be expected. In a 10 x 12 room it wouldn't have near as much effect. It takes just a minute to reconnect these wires inside a foil wrap so not really a big deal more something to be aware of I think.